Snow
by Shiro Amayagi
Summary: Early birthday fic for Akiko. What does snow mean to you?


Snow...powder, falling from the sky. To a child's eyes, it was a release from the next day's lessons. To an adult, it was an obstacle in getting to work. For the farmers, it was the certain death of their weaker crops, and a sure sign to begin work in the greenhouse. For her, however, it was Hell. Cold, frozen-over, Hell.

She was easily fifty miles from civilization in any direction, and not quite dressed for cold weather. Her car had broken down on the side of the road, and her cell phone was dead, on likely the only day she had decided it completely unnecessary to recharge it. She wanted to swear terribly, but he wouldn't approve.

Oh yes...him...

_He_ was probably warm right now. Of course, he was always warm. All the fireplaces in the world couldn't knock off the chill with anywhere near the skill he did with just a touch across her face. And when he held her, there was no cold at all. There was no winter, there was no "thirteen-below". Just the tropics, the subtle breeze in her hair, and him. Oh, she missed him.

She sat near her car, looking desperately for anything on the horizon. Anything. A car, a truck - hell, she'd settle for a mechanically-minded pedestrian. She just wanted to get where it was warm, where he was.

An hour passed, and still, she saw nothing. No cars, no trucks, just the powder snow. She almost immediately began to sneeze, and she could feel her shoulders shaking involuntarily. An audible chattering pushed itself away from her ice-blue lips, and she realized, solemnly, that humans weren't built to resist the elements in such a manner. If she didn't start moving, she would die.

But which way should she go? God only knew where he was right then, and she was afraid to go the wrong way. She fell to her knees, and managed a small prayer before pain shot through her bare knees, and she saw that she was kneeling on the snow. With much effort, she pushed herself to her feet.

_Follow the wind..._

Without a word, she closed her eyes, and let the wind hit her. It blew to the north. Without question, without hesitation, she began to the north.

Powder snow...the beautiful flakes that fall from the sky. Each flake new, individual, more beautiful than the last. Each flake, landing on the shoulders of her sleeveless shirt, adding a tint of royal blue to her bared arms and freezing her to the core. Each flake, freezing a tear that fell from her deep, brown eyes, creating a icy sting where she had hoped for the normal burning sensation to relieve her pain. Each flake, hating her more than the last.

She trudged onward, silently pitying the bare, dying oak trees, and envying the sheer will of the evergreens. She thought about her eyes, her pride and joy, likely turning blue themselves in the chill. On the first day they met, he remarked on her eyes. He was a poet, and every word from his mouth described them in a simply lyrical manner. And what he thought mattered, because he was warm.

He called her Autumn. Her name was Jenna, but she didn't really care. The first day they met was the autumnal equinox, the first day of Autumn, and so he gave her that nickname. She loved the nickname. She tried to think of the day - she'd kill to have it back. She'd kill for any day of Autumn, honestly. She'd kill for _him_.

He was a beautiful person. Despite what many would think, unlike the outspoken friends he spent most of his time with, he said more with little pieces of scratch paper and worn pencils than he had ever verbalized in his entire life.

And he wasn't anywhere near. That by itself meant that she was frozen solid.

Powder snow...it was one of his favourite subjects. He wrote poem after poem about the snowy landscape, and when he ran out of inspiration, he drew it. She even resigned herself to play out in the snow and build snowmen and make snow angels with him, even though she really hated it.

It represented death, so she believed. The plants die, the cold sweeps over everything, the rain freezes and sticks to the streets, and the birds are nowhere near to sing their songs.

She walked for miles, and as the sun set, a light began to shine. Tears streamed down her face, and froze before they shattered on the packed-ice ground. The wind picked up, and a sense of foreboding swept over her.

_I don't wanna die! Please, God, please don't let me die!_

She looked around in panic. Off in the distance, she saw the shadow of a person. She tried to call out for help, but her voice would not obey her, and the tears increased.

She tried to signal, but her arms would not move. The snow stuck to them, and forced them down, and would not allow her the most basic of movements. Her breathing was laboured, and her world itself reflected pain, and she could not stop the crying.

And she fell.

Powder snow...the subject of happiness, the subject of inconvenience, the subject of farmers' irritation...and now the subject of death. Was it really over? Was she gone? She couldn't be, she had so many people to say goodbye to! Her mother, her father, her brother, her friends...and him. No. She couldn't go. She had to say goodbye to him.

But she kept falling. Two seconds quickly became two hours. Falling, falling, falling...that was the only thing she could think about. For those two seconds, she fell. There was no time. There was no beginning, no end. Just falling. And she knew that when she hit the ground, it was all over. She resigned herself to it - her arms were gone, and she could not fight gravity.

It was all over.

She stopped. She saw the snow, the powdery ground, and then saw that she was not lying on it. The ground slowly moved farther away, or so she could see. Was she dead, then? Was an angel carrying her to the judgment?

She couldn't go! She wasn't ready!

But she kept moving.

Suddenly, a warmth spread over her. A warmth that was familiar, encouraging. The sound of the whipping wind that had filled her ears calmed, and died out altogether.

And she met the eyes of her beloved.

"Alex...", she whispered, softly, as the warmth took her into soft, contented dreams.

Powder snow...the subject of happiness, the subject of inconvenience, the subject of farmers' irritation, and the subject...of love.


End file.
